cultbranding.com

Searching for Status, Discovering Everything Has Changed

Everything has changed—on the surface. Underneath, the unconscious motivators that drive consumer behavior remain the same.

If we stand here now and look back into the mists of time to the very first days of human commerce we’ll discover that business owners have always wanted the answer to a single question: what makes consumers act the way they do?

One of the factors that drive consumer behavior, consciously or otherwise, is meeting individual needs. You’re familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the model that tells us that we are all in possession of certain innate needs that must be met in order for us to enjoy optimal physical and psychological health.

July 28, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Brand DNA: Understanding Customer Motivation

Our approach to understanding customers is founded on what we call the Brand DNA. Brand DNA is the root of developing all long-term strategies and short-term tactics. The Brand DNA consists of three interlocking parts:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Jungian Archetypes
The Cultural Story

July 21, 2020 by Aaron Shields

Take Your People on a Heroic Quest

Inspiring leaders see their companies’ journeys as grand stories.

Why are we drawn into stories about adventures? What is our fascination with journeys traveled by characters like Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen or Washington crossing the Delaware or the fabulously named Rough Riders?

Mythology expert Joseph Campbell tells us that these adventures are all part of the hero’s journey—a schema laid out in his ground-breaking book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The heroic quest predates written language and its primary structure can help guide teams through massive changes. This story structure is all but hardwired into the human brain: We tell stories this way because stories that follow this pattern release transformative psychological power.

July 14, 2020 by BJ Bueno

Sell The Dream, Create Evangelists

Evangelism stems from understanding that brands are co-authored experiences between the customer and the company.

We are big fans of great books.

One of our favorite books is Guy Kawasaki’s Selling The Dream.

In Selling The Dream, former Apple software evangelist Guy Kawasaki lays the groundwork for what it takes to drive passion.

July 7, 2020 by BJ Bueno

What To Do When You’re Worn Out

Fostering a happy workplace Starts with cultivating optimism within yourself.

There are ways to change the tide and bring greater optimism and joy into your organization as well as your personal life.

Fostering a happy workplace starts by cultivating optimism within yourself.

Here are four effective strategies for developing positive personal psychology:

June 25, 2020 by BJ Bueno

How To Stay Motivated By Your Company’s Vision

WHAT YOU DO TODAY DETERMINES THE TYPE OF ORGANIZATION YOU CAN BECOME TOMORROW.

When you visualize daily, you align your thoughts and feelings with your vision. This makes it easier to maintain the motivation you need to continue taking the necessary actions.Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning

Developing a vision creates energy and momentum in a company.

But, that energy usually fades over time. The pressure of the now takes over. The vision becomes something that will happen in the distant future.

The vision loses the power it was designed to have: create a passion to motivate you through anything in service of the better future you want.

June 17, 2020 by Aaron Shields

Are Your Core Values Really Core Values?

When you create a list of core values, you have to create a list of the values as they are, not as you want them to be.

Perhaps the most popular corporate exercise of the last decade is creating a set of core values, those beliefs that form the foundation of the organization.

Unless this is done by the founder early on in the organization’s life— when the organization is close to a blank slate—chances are the list created by executives aren’t really core values.

These lists usually end up being the way the executives think they want people to behave and not the values that are actually guiding day-to-day behavior.

At their heart, true core values are the beliefs that guide behaviors. The values become internalized to the point of habit. They guide the way people naturally react to situations.

June 10, 2020 by Aaron Shields

From Purpose to Brand

A company’s purpose flows expressly from its heritage and leads directly to its values. —James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine III

A company’s purpose flows expressly from its heritage and leads directly to its values.James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine III, Authenticity

A brand is a living entity with three elements: vision, culture, and customer. Leadership creates a vision that inspires employees whose behaviors—through direct interaction and marketing— translate your brand to your customers. These elements influence each other and collectively create a perception of the company. That perception is the brand.

Underlying all three of these elements is your purpose: what your brand stands for beyond profits. A purpose is why you exist.

June 3, 2020 by Aaron Shields

Advertising Isn’t Just For Customers

People must be motivated by a deeper Cause....I believe that people don’t come to work to earn money for themselves and the company. They come to work because the product does something worthwhile, and this is what gets people inspired. —Bill George

People must be motivated by a deeper Cause….I believe that people don’t come to work to earn money for themselves and the company. They come to work because the product does something worthwhile, and this is what gets people inspired.Bill George¹

With increasing competitive pressures from existing businesses and industry disruptors, corporations have turned to place greater emphasis on satisfying their employees to maintain or gain a competitive edge.

This has resulted in everything from Google-esque compensation packages to creating—or more often attempting to create—cultures and business practices based around unique core values, all in an effort to engage and retain employees with more than a paycheck.

May 26, 2020 by Aaron Shields

How Short-Term Wins Can Lead To Long-Term Failures

short term wins don’t necessarily translate into long-term company health.—

Can the sum of a row of many victories over many years be defeat?General Löwenhielm in Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast

New customers! More revenue! Huge ROI!

Immediate, positive results are attractive and addictive. It’s easy to understand why: People get praise from their bosses. The current market rewards quarterly capitalism with most investments currently being held somewhere between four and eight months—a big change from the average holding of over eight years during the 1960s.¹ And, many people’s jobs depend on these immediate results.

May 20, 2020 by Aaron Shields

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